Is It More Important To Match A Shade Guide Or A Patients Tooth?

I have had some interesting feedback on my post about digital shade systems. It appears I failed to differentiate the primary difference of what we are trying to do. A system that will tell you what the base shade is (or closest to) from a file library is handy if you want a "close enough" result. I have found that close is good if your throwing hand grenades or playing horse shoes.  

If you want a anterior shade match that involves translucency and hue chroma level, you need to know the % difference between the shade sample and the patients tooth. anything less than that is insufficient date to provide a truly aesthetic restoration.  An  shade match from a picture (digital or otherwise ) that is obtained from a file registry is only part of the information needed to provide high grade cosmetics.  

Beyond the selection of a base shade, we are presenting the information necessary to match the individual patients with the selected restorative material. Matching a tooth shade from a picture with a file is fine if your doing dentures.

As a ceramist I work to match TEETH not shade guides. Shade guides are simply the starting point from which we individualize with information about the % differences of the patients tooth beyond the base information. Now we can truly give individual shade matches with cases sent from thousands of miles away  with 97% of the guesswork eliminated. That is the difference offered by Spectrafire Technologies digital shade analysis system.

A few people missed the point that we went beyond picking a base shade & enabled accurate information enabling a true custom shade.

So, I am asking, is picking a base shade from a computer file sufficient? Or does more accurate information about variances of shade guide Vs tooth necessary to enable higher patient satisfaction and higher operational efficiency.  Long ago, Dr. Peter K. Thomas told me "he did not understand how they never have time to it right the first time, but they always have time to do it over" . that was over 50 years ago , some things never change do they .

Hope i explained better this time.    Thanks for your time

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